Kiss and Lipstick 1 May Carnival. Founding Fathers
A 2024 Bishkek reenactment of a May Day carnival action: lipstick on monuments to the “founding fathers,” in dialogue with Mamyshev-Monroe’s Politburo.
On 1 May 2021, police detained about twenty artists gathered around an artist-run space. They had staged a May Day carnival procession through the city in costume, playing musical instruments. The stated reason for the arrests was that the artists had painted lipstick on a Pushkin bust. According to media reports, detainees were taken to a police station “for damaging one of the city’s monuments.” After giving statements, they began to be released.
On 1 May 2024 in Bishkek, a group of anonymous artists reenacted this performance, painting lipstick onto a series of monuments. The monuments in Central Square of Bishkek — Soviet figures, the “founding fathers” of Kyrgyz statehood — received the most attention.
The action can also be read as an homage to Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe’s well-known series Politburo (1990–2011). As the artist described it: after placing Mikhail Gorbachev under house arrest in Foros during the August putsch, other Politburo members tried to seize power — and, uncertain of success, turned to Mamyshev-Monroe to invent ways they might disguise themselves as women and leave the Kremlin unrecognized if the coup failed (echoing the myth of Kerensky fleeing the Winter Palace in women’s clothes).
The Bishkek cell decided to reimagine Kyrgyz history, imagining that the founding fathers whose busts stand in Central Square need not have been cisgender men alien to free gender transformation. Besides makeup, the artists also kissed selected monuments; documentation of that part of the performance has not survived.
Central Square, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Mockumentation of a performance by anonymous artists, 2024.
Original text (Russian)
Published on the False Vacuum Witnesses project site.
